The latest EU-Japan summit wrapped up on April 23, with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda holding talks with European Council President Janez Jansa (the Slovenian prime minister) and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. The meeting came at a time when both Europe and Japan ...

On March 5, Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to Japan, was invited to speak to members of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) for the first time in the organization’s history. The invitation underlined the growing sense of urgency in Japanese business circles ...

Although the word “subprime” may have been understood only by a few industry insiders a few months ago, it is certainly entering the global lexicon with some force these days. Governments around the world have been deploring the state of their economies, usually invoking ...

The great industrialist Henry Ford once proclaimed “history is bunk.” But when it comes to international business, this wisdom does not always prevail. Take Japanese-Chinese relations, for example; the weight of history has played heavily in all dealings between the two nations in the ...

Without a doubt, 2007 will go down as an “annus horribilis” for many industries in Japan, particularly the food industry. The list of scandals and crises last year was long indeed, and began right in January with the discovery that crowd-pleasing confectioner Fujiya had ...

There are few pieces of office equipment as ubiquitous or as necessary as the personal computer. While the number of PCs in use worldwide is nearly impossible to estimate, their prevalence as a basic tool may be obscuring their role as energy consuming devices. ...

Last week, the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced it was tying up with the London Stock Exchange to establish a new type of market in Japan. The new market will make it easier for startups to list by removing numerous regulations and will be restricted ...

It’s no secret that Japan’s advertising market is one of the world’s largest. Indeed, the world’s biggest advertising firm is a Japanese one. In 2006, the top 10 Japanese advertising agencies billed clients ¥6 trillion (37 billion euro), according to Dentsu, Japan’s leading agency. ...

Last week’s visit to Japan by German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a sobering lesson in G8 politics. Germany currently holds the G8 presidency but will pass the baton to Japan in January. While it is uncertain whether Abe will still ...

Japan is often seen as the motherland of the photovoltaic industry. Back in 1993, the government started its New Sunshine Project, a massive subsid program that helped to equip 300,000 Japanese houses with solar panels over the following decade. During that time Japan became ...